Filed to story: Love on the Sidelines (Natalie & Karl)
Cody put his hand on Lindsey’s back and nearly pushed her toward the chairs across from my desk. “There are things you have to be told before the whole town finds out, Natalie, and I knew you’d never agree to listen to Lindsey if we gave you a choice.”
“Guess what? I still have a choice. Now get the hell out of my office.”
“No. You’re going to hear this out.” He took the seat next to Lindsey and glanced at her, then took off his hat and balanced it on his knee. “It’s time you found out what really happened fifteen years ago.”
“Natalie, please.” Lindsey’s voice was soft, hesitant. She looked much the same as she had that day at the hospital. Maybe a little more nervous, and a bit paler, but still beautiful. “I wanted to tell you as soon as we got back, but Karl wouldn’t let me. He said I had to talk to the sheriff first.”
Cody reached over and covered her hand with his. “And she did. Last Monday.” He smiled encouragingly at Lindsey. “Go ahead. Start at the beginning.” Stiffly, I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms over my chest, a feeling of doom settling over me as I watched Lindsey. She cleared her throat, her gaze fastened on her and Cody’s hands.
“The beginning.” A tiny smile curved her lips. “Do you remember that day at the junkyard when you invited me to the church picnic? You scared me half to death. You were so strong, Natalie. So friendly and outgoing. I’d never met anyone like you before.” She took a deep breath. “After that day, I watched every move you made. You were everything I wished I could be, and I wanted desperately to be your friend. But I didn’t know how. There were so many people who loved you. The only one who cared about me was Karl. He was all I had, a brother and a father all rolled into one. I think I would probably have died if Karl hadn’t been there. He was the one who saw to it that I ate, who got me ready for school every day. I suppose Mama loved me in her own way, but she had so many other things to worry about that I got lost in the shuffle.” Her gaze lifted to mine, and in spite of myself I was mesmerized. I didn’t want to listen to her, didn’t want to care about what she was telling me, but I couldn’t stop the feeling of pity as I remembered the scared little girl she’d once been.
“But eventually we grew up,” she continued. “And Karl started to change. He was spending most of his spare time at your family’s farm. And when he was home, he talked about you constantly. I knew he was in love with you, and I was happy for him.
At least, I was until that last year.”
She looked at Cody beseechingly, and he nodded. “Keep going. You’re doing fine.” Her hands were shaking and her chin trembled before she spoke again. “That fall my mother had Billy, my little brother. Frank hung around our house a lot, but when he wasn’t there, other men were. Mama hated it, but it was the only way she could make any extra money. After she had Billy, Mr. Howard, Jenna’s father, helped her get a job at the roadhouse waiting tables, and he gave her some money for the baby. But there wasn’t enough to pay a babysitter, so I didn’t go back to school. Instead, I stayed home to take care of my brother. I hated school so I really didn’t mind. But then Frank started hanging around while Mama was at work. He scared me, the way he watched every move I made, the way he kept trying to get me alone.” Suddenly things were starting to click in my memory. “You told Karl. That’s why he wanted everyone to think the two of you were dating.” Lindsey let out a sigh of relief. “Yes. We were both afraid of what would happen if Frank got me alone. Karl thought if his father believed we were a couple, it might slow him down a little. For a while, it did. But one night he came over after I put Billy to bed, so drunk he could hardly walk, and I barely got away from him by locking myself in the bedroom. If he’d been sober, the lock would never have stopped him.” She lifted a hand and tiredly rubbed her forehead. “That day you showed up at the gas station and saw Karl and me together, I’d just finished telling him what Frank had done. I knew what you thought, Natalie, but I was terrified. Karl was furious and too ashamed of his father to tell you the truth. He went straight home and confronted Frank. They had a horrible fight, the worst I’d ever seen. Karl told him to stay away from me, but Frank wouldn’t listen. He kept yelling that I was nothing but a two-bit whore, just like my mother, and that if I could spread my legs for Karl, I could damn well spread them for him. I thought they were going to hit each other, but by then Frank was a little afraid of Karl. Karl wasn’t the little boy Frank used to beat anymore.
He was younger and stronger than Frank, and he wasn’t weakened from constant drinking.”
Her gaze met mine again. “I wasn’t sleeping with Karl, Natalie, I swear. It would have been like incest to me. I loved Karl, yes, but not that way. He was my family.” My heart was pounding so hard I could hear the rush of blood in my ears. I was putting two and two together and not liking the answer I was coming up with. Because if she were telling the truth, if she really hadn’t slept with Karl, then Daniel…oh, God.
Pain stabbed through my stomach until I wanted to double over and clutch my middle, and nausea left a bitter taste in my throat.
Lindsey must have seen the realization in my eyes. Her free hand stopped its nervous movements and she became chillingly calm. “That’s when Karl started spending his evenings with me. He’d come home as soon as he got off work, and stay until Mama got back. We both knew Frank was just waiting for the right moment, waiting until I was alone. Karl tried to talk me into leaving. He even offered to help me.
He’d found out about this program they have in Little Rock, kind of like a job corps.
They trained high school dropouts in different areas, and then helped them find a decent job.”
Her voice dropped. “But God help me, I wouldn’t listen to him. I was too weak, too afraid of leaving everything I knew and being alone. And I couldn’t understand why I should have to. After all, Karl was there. I knew he’d protect me just like he always had.”
She closed her eyes briefly before looking at me again. “And he did. Until you gave him an ultimatum. Me or you. He had to choose. And because he loved you, and couldn’t stand the thought of losing you, he chose you.” A pained laugh escaped her lips while I gripped the chair arms until my knuckles turned white.
“I hated you for years after that, blamed you for everything that happened.”
“Lindsey, I didn’t know. If Karl had told me…”
She waved one hand vaguely in the air. “I know now that it wasn’t your fault, although it took years of therapy for me to understand. You see, I didn’t believe Karl when he told me he wasn’t going to stay with me anymore. I thought it was some kind of joke. I sat there on the couch and watched him leave, waiting for the punch line. But there wasn’t one.”
She sucked in a breath of air that sounded more like a half-broken sob. “When I realized he was serious, that he wasn’t coming back, I almost went crazy, I was so scared. Then, about an hour later, I heard a truck pull in at the salvage yard. It was Friday night. It never occurred to me that it might be Frank. I figured he’d be out drinking until all hours, like he usually did. I thought Karl had come back. So I checked on Billy and made sure he was asleep, then I ran to the trailer. But it wasn’t Karl. Frank was there, and he wasn’t drunk this time.”
A single tear slipped down her cheek and she gripped Cody’s hand tightly. “I tried to run, but it was too late. He caught me and pulled me back into the trailer. When I fought him, he beat me until I was nearly unconscious. And when I couldn’t move anymore, he tore my clothes off and raped me. Not just once, but over and over again. It was like he wanted to punish me for escaping him as long as I had.” She reached up with her left hand and brushed the tear away. “Things are kind of blurry after that. I think he went into the bedroom for awhile. And when I heard him coming back, I knew it was going to happen all over again, that he wouldn’t stop until he’d killed me. I snapped. I don’t know where I got the gun, or the strength to use it, I only remember pulling the trigger. Even after the gun was empty, I kept pulling the trigger. That’s what I was doing when Karl found me. He took the gun away from me and carried me home, then he called Mama and told her to get me to a hospital. As soon as she got there, he went back to the trailer, cleaned my fingerprints off the gun, and called the police.”
“And told them he’d killed Frank,” I whispered.
Lindsey glanced at Cody, and he nodded in answer to my statement. “Apparently, Lindsey wasn’t in any shape to be questioned, and Karl knew it. She wasn’t talking or moving, just staying wherever they put her, not even blinking. And Karl blamed himself for the whole thing. It almost destroyed him. I think part of him hoped he’d be punished.”
Cody watched me intently as he talked, a worried expression on his face.
“Everything she’s told you is the truth, Natalie. I’ve spent the last week checking all the details. Liz knew what had happened. I guess Karl told her. And because she didn’t want Frank’s murder pinned on Lindsey, she took her to the hospital in Paragould. The doctors there notified the Green County Sheriff, but they had no way of knowing about Frank, and probably wouldn’t have connected his death with a rape if they had.
Lindsey couldn’t tell them what happened, and Liz wouldn’t. They eventually chalked it up as an unsolvable rape and closed the case. I’ve talked to the doctors, and the sheriff, to Liz and even Karl. There’s no doubt it was self-defense.” My head was spinning like I’d drunk a gallon of wine, waves of dizziness rolling over me until I could barely stay in the chair. I’d been braced to hear Frank raped her.
What I hadn’t expected was to discover that Karl had lied about killing his father.
That’s when my feelings started to change. Up to that point, I was consumed with guilt and feelings of pity for Lindsey. No woman deserved to go through what she had, and it was partially my fault. But now, anger built slowly inside me, helping me get a grip on my emotions. I leaned forward and crossed my arms on the desk.
“You were pregnant. Daniel isn’t Karl’s son, he’s his brother.”
“Yes.” Lindsey took over the story again. “Mama was the first to realize I was pregnant, but she didn’t tell me. I think she was afraid of what I’d do. By then, I was finally starting to recover physically from the rape, but I still wasn’t mentally stable. So she found out where they’d sent Karl and called him. Together, they decided that Karl would claim me as his stepsister on his army records. Mama couldn’t afford a hospital for me, and the army had good ones. If Karl was my sole support, I could be treated for free as his dependant. They also decided it would be better not to tell me about the baby until I was safely admitted with people around who could watch me.” When Lindsey hesitated, Cody jumped in again. “They waited until Karl was almost done with basic training, then Liz put Lindsey on a bus for Kentucky. Liz was afraid people would start asking questions, so she reported Lindsey missing.
Meanwhile, Karl had done all the paperwork and everything was ready. He picked her up at the bus station and took her straight to the hospital.”
“And it’s a good thing he did,” Lindsey said. “When they told me I was pregnant, I really went off the deep end. I couldn’t stand the thought of having part of Frank Hayes inside me. It was like being raped all over again, with no way to stop it this time.”
She looked down at her hands, and I noticed she was once again wearing long sleeves.
“I tried to kill myself. Every time they left me alone for more than a minute, I’d try.